Oroville High baseball team sweeps Las Plumas on two one-hit shutouts

OROVILLE — It would have been hard for Oroville High's Tanner Andoe to upstage teammate Jackson Berry's first-game performance against Las Plumas on Tuesday.

He almost did.

Andoe followed up Berry's one-hitter with one of his own, a tandem masterpiece from the mound in a doubleheader sweep of the Thunderbirds, 9-0 and 10-0 at Oroville High.

Just Nicholas Larsen and Jess Little reached first base in the 12 innings for LP against Tiger pitching, a dominant showing backed by plenty of support as the hosts opened up the week's series by stymieing their rivals in a pair of shutouts.

Berry struck out eight and walked two, with another reaching on an error, before Andoe turned around and went the distance as well, striking out nine and walking one while throwing first-pitch strikes to 14 of the 20 hitters he faced to set the tone.

"He threw really well — located his fastball, got ahead in the count and we played well behind him, too," Oroville coach Rick Giovannoni said. "And Jackson, a shutout too. Just great games by those guys."

Andoe said he tried not to focus on matching Berry's feat; he wasn't even fully aware of the no-no he carried into the sixth until a teammate blurted it out in the dugout, he said, to the horror of Oroville coaches. Sure enough, Larsen blooped a fly-ball single to right, clearly lost in the sun by Jacob Thornton, who then threw out Larsen trying for two anyway.

"I wasn't really focused on the no-hitter I almost got, just on getting outs, making pitches," Andoe said. "I guess someone brought it up and made me aware of it but I just wanted to throw strikes."

Dakota McGinnis totaled four hits on the day, with Marcus Wilhite connecting on a pair of doubles and Thornton and Andoe each driving in two runs in the opener. Adam Clay had two hits, including a double, and Bodie Marikas had three RBIs in the second game.

"They had good approaches, saw a lot of pitches and put themselves in counts where they could look for their pitch to hit," Giovannoni said. "We made their guys throw a lot of pitches early."

Oroville rallied for five runs in the second inning of the second game to back Andoe, with RBI singles from Marikas and Clay compounding on a pair of costly errors by LP. The combination of the Tigers' effective arms, patient at-bats and a total of nine errors on the day for the T'birds was more than enough to add up to two wins for Oroville, playing on its new field at the high school instead of its traditional Mitchell Field digs.

"It's really nice to play on. We've done a lot of work here," Giovannoni said, noting that the Tigers will make the facility, formerly the junior varsity's, its primary field. "It's definitely nice to play on your own campus."